[ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it... in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. great taste. mmm... [ male announcer ] sounds good. it's amazing what soup can do. >> good morning and happy new year. nobody's celebrating this morning but the deal is done. it was slow, painful, there was posturing till the very end but congress did manage to approve legislation to avert this fiscal cliff, even though for most of the night it looked like it might not happen. >> the one thing that i think hopefully in the new year we'll focus on is seeing if we can put a package like this together with a little bit less drama, a

little less brinksmanship, not scare the heck out of folks quite as much. >> that was the president late last night. then he got on oo plane, headed back to hawaii where his family is on vacation. threw see air force i. it touched down just moments ago. >> the ayes have it. >> it was after 11 p.m. when the house finally voted, putting an end to 24 hours of wrangling. republicans threatened to send it back with an amendment, including spend being cuts. but in the end the politics of that didn't make sense. so the bill passed, 257 for, 85 republicans, 172 democrats. speaker john boehner was one of those yes votes and he released this statement: now the focus turns to spending. the american people reelected a republican majority in the house and we will use it in 2013 to

hold the president accountable for the balanced approach he promised, meaning significant spend being cut and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt. on wall street, the dow up well over 200 points. could be a record rally for the first day of the year. let me bring in our guests. good morning and happy new year. >> happy new year, chris. >> let's take a look at what they actually agreed to. taxes are going to go up on households over $450,000. they delay the sequester. of course those are the harsh cuts for a couple of months. it extends unemployment benefits, it includes the medicare doc fix. any winners, though, really do you think, lynn? >> i think winner is all of us who live with a paycheck because we -- most people who don't make

$400,000 will not have their taxes go up. i think the winner is vice president biden. he was able to come in and brokary deal with mitch mcconnell when everything was stalled. without going into the winner of who won and who lost, you can take it step by step, one other thing, people who drink milk of winners because this bill included a one-year extension of the farm bill so we're not going to see skyrocketing milk prices. >> before the president left for hawaii, he said he was sorry he couldn't get that grand bargain. let me play that for you. >> speaker boehner and i originally tried to negotiate a larger agreement that would put this country on a path to paying down its debt, while also putting americans back to work. unfortunately there just wasn't enough support or time for that kind of large agreement in a lame duck session of congress. >> or, jim, as they call the grand bargain or the big deal.

are those days dead given where we are? we really aren't going to be very different in this new congress. most of the congress felt that they were left out of these negotiations. it's all about the leadership anyway. >> one of the ironies is that the republicans left on the table what would have been a much more advantageous deal more than a year ago and the president was bending to a far greater extent. they spurned that and boxed into a corner and now tomorrow you'll have the president sunning in hawaii while john boehner is trying to twist some arms to get reelected speaker when the republicans meet. but one should also note here in that list, one thing i think you left out and surely unintentionally is what's going to happen for payroll taxes. for the average person, you're going to pay about a thousand dollars more and that's a lot of money for people to maybe

$40,000, to $50,000 a year. you could argue they are losers here, too. >> we're going to do a whole segment on that later in the program. there is the president, who has landed in hawaii now. he left his vacation, came back while they were going through all this deal making and then, as we said, left immediately after it passed the house last night and he made some comments. we saw him at the podium there. and i think it's also worth pointing out that it wasn't just the republicans who were unhappy with this. there were plenty of democrats, particularly liberal democrats, who voted against this bill. i want to play something that washington's adam smith said this morning. >> i'm concerned that revenue has been sort of taken off the table at this point. 90% of the bush tax cuts are now locked in permanently so any effort to deal with the very large debt and deficit that we have going down the road here, revenue is pretty much off the table and we didn't get much. so those are my concerns. >> nobody felt like they got a

great deal here, lynn. but moving forward does one side or the other have the upper hand? >> well, i think this goes in stages and since we have the looming debt ceiling in a few weeks, the upper hand ball is in the republican court right now, chris. the democrats had the advantage just now in the tax discussion because they didn't want to be tagged with getting the blame for most everyone's taxes rising. so it's situational sometimes. so next step is republican advantage. >> and because the cbo, i think, is with him on this, jim, they say this adds $4 trillion to the deficit. >> pretty aastonishing. there are some, you know, more conservative estimates of that. there's some folks who actually claim that things are slightly improved by this but that's based on a whole lot of assumptions. given what lynn just said, it will be interesting what happens in a couple months and my

tendency believes this is with obama. i think some of the republicans by virtue of the way their districts are now shaped may be sort of boxed in again. there are a lot of folks throughout who don't want to get hit with a tea party challenge a year from now as they prepare to run again. i'm not so sure that this is not all going to come up once again with a lot of folks being very intransigent and the president taking a seemingly higher road and bashing the rich in a successful fashion. what is his position going to be? is it going to be nixon goes to china when it comes to the granddaddy here of this whole mess, which is entitlement reform, will he able to come to a deal which really cuts things on the spending side because that really did not happen in these last 48 frenetic hours. >> stand by, jim. i want to bring in congresswoman maxine waters. happy new year. >> happy new year to you, also.

>> let me play be a clip of your colleagues reacting to this. >> it was because of the action of the senate that we found ourselves here on new year's eve that we had to take this action. the house is saying no more. >> compromise and solutions, that's what the house wants. it was house democrats who stopped us from going off this cliff. >> a lot of finger pointing we've heard over the last several hours, a lot of the blame game and frankly a lot of complaints as you well know. how would you describe the mood on the hill this morning, congresswoman? >> well, it's a bit early yet but as i left last evening, we democrats were pleased that we were able to protect the average american family in america. this was not difficult. we did not get everything. yes, we did kick down the road the spending cuts and some other things that have to be considered, but we did protect the american taxpayer and we made sure that they didn't have

a tax increase that was going to average about, what, $2,200 per year. that's significant. so the american taxpayer was the winner in all of this. we've got a lot more work to do and none of us are completely happy. but i think that the democrats did lead. the republicans are in disarray. i mean, they're fighting each other and they begrudgingly had to go along with the leadership that we provided in order to just get this done. of course we've got two months by which to bring up these issues again, deal with the potential spending cuts and they're going to still be in disarray, but we're going to move forward and try to do the right thing for the american taxpayers. >> there is this problem that they have within the republican party between the conservatives and more moderates. since you talk about what's going to happen in a couple of months because there are so many

things important that are coming up on the table, i'd like you to address something politico is reporting this morning that last week on friday john boehner walked past harry reid and said, pardon me, "go f yourself" and then repeated it and bragged about it, according to political sources. first of all, have you heard about this? and if this is the level of animosity, what hope is there a couple months down the road when these issues come up? >> i don't know if he said that and i don't know if he did say it whether or not that represents in some way the level of animosity. unfortunately in these kinds of situations, often times people do say things and they say them in ways that others may seem unacceptable and this goes on whether or not it's in the capital, in the newsroom, on plathe playground.

it just happens to be the way that sometimes americans express themselves. i don't know that he did that way. >> congresswoman maxine waters, it is good to you have on the program. thank you very much. >> you're certainly welcome. >> while the house approved this deal, there was no deal to send aid to the victims of hurricane sandy. let me play for you what republican congressman steve latourette said this morning. >> the same chuckle heads who j jet jetisonned planned b, i guess they don't have tvs. that don't make sense to me. an emergency is an emergency. these are americans who are suffering. >> chuck schumer is going to have a news conference at the bottom of the hour.

was dealing with that, too, too much? >> i was up on the hill last night, chris, and lawmakers from new york and new jersey were livid because they had been told there was supposed to be a vote. if they don't get anything done by tomorrow, they do have to start all over again. usually there is a tradition in congress of coming together over these big emergencies so there may be another step added today but that time is just running out now. maybe it's a little bit of retaliation on the republicans because they didn't want to see -- be seen as just spending more money, no matter what for after they just did this big, you know, fiscal cliff package. >> and, jim, speaker boehner's spokesman said they're committed to getting it passed this month but there definitely are republicans and whether it's retaliation or something else, they have said that they think that the need is not as great as it's been made out to be. >> well, i don't think there are too many of those republicans in some of those states that actually were impacted and it's one thing to be pretty

ideologically driven about spending cuts. it's another thing to sort of turn your back on your fellow americans who truly are in need, go to places all around, including that one area say in queens, not too far from where you guys, chris, 90, 100 homes burned down. those folks need help. reality is apparently, though, that fema claims it's got enough money to get through much of this month of january, but then it will need some. so what you're going to see as the clock turns back, the senate will probably have to pass legislation again and then the house will do it and that $60 billion or so will go to the affected communities, albeit rather belated and in some ways tragically a little bit tardy. >> jim warren, lynn sweet, good to see both of you this morning. thanks so much for coming on. >> thank you. >> sandy relief was left out but here's a look at other things that were left out. it gives $430 million to hollywood and special incentives

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a. if the volatile fiscal cliff negotiations strained the dead line, wait a minute. there are three more fights coming up that made this seem like round one. >> whatever your point of view, we got that triple play or triple jeopardy where we're going to have that nightmare scenario in a couple of months and we're back to the trench

warfare. >> that nightmare scenario triple threat includes raising the debt ceiling. you remember the last time that was fought over, the u.s. credit rating was downgraded. the sequester deadline was march 1st and then there's that continuing budget resolution. that expires on march 27th. i'm joined by the national journal's congressional correspondent. chris, ain't we got fun here? zit like one crisis to another, chris. >> compared to the fiscal cliff, how serious is this triple sf t threat? >> i think a lot of folks will tell you and i agree that the fiscal cliff pales in comparison to the debt ceiling. we saw what happened in september 2011 that wh we almost defaulted. there's the threat that it will

down grade the sovereign interest of the interest rates and on top of that another threat of a government shutdown if they can't agree on how to fund the government. it going to be quite a bit more drama before we're done the first part of this year, chris. >> let me play for you what the president said yesterday about the debt ceiling. >> while i will negotiate over many things, i will not have another debate with this congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they've already racked up through the laws that they passed. >> so he's drawn the line. i mean, what are they saving over on the republican side? >> well, certainly i don't think republicans would agree with that at all. in fact, keeping the debt ceiling out of this deal was one of the few wins for republicans and they see the ability to use that ceiling again as leverage to get the kind of spending cuts they say are needed to get the deficit under control and that was part of the negotiating position, you know, that mitch mcconnell took when he came in and worked a deal with joe

biden, that they didn't put this in there. and that was a win for republicans. it's going to be tough for the president. >> here's what new york congressman steve israel said about not just the debt ceiling but all three of these imminent deadlines. this was a little earlier this morning. >> if we can find republicans to join with us and quit playing games with the debt ceiling and quit this roadrunner mentality of finding a cliff in every episode of congress, i think we can get this done. >> the republicans are saying the democrats have to realize they have to quit spending. it doesn't sound any different than it did before. we've got a new congress but generally the makeup isn't significantly different and we saw these negotiations weren't done by the rank and file anyway. do you have a sense at this point, can one of these get done easily, or we're going to fight over the others or is this just one nightmare after another? >> i don't know that any of these can get done easily at this point. everybody's taking a breath and they're going to try to reassess

their leverage going into this new congress. when you look at kind of where the republicans are come, they feel like particularly in their negotiations with the president, that this was not, you know, a good faith effort on behalf of the white house. you know, i have a story in national courage right now, me and my colleagues did a tick tock of what happened behind the scenes and you have the president's chief negotiator calling the speaker staff the morning of his plan b rollout and saying, hey, my press secretary told me to call you so we can tell people that we talked today. and that was kind of where talks had gone and that grand bargain went away after that. so to think that they can come back and reset on these other big issues is going to be real tough. >> yeah, how do you even start talking about immigration? how do you start talking about gun control when you've got this other stuff going on? >> and that is the -- that was the risk that the president took and when he, you know, was unable to come to an agreement with the speaker and it really

is a big question mark over this 113th congress when they ring in. you know, they have so many leftovers from sandy to the next budget showdown and this governing by showdown seems to be the only way that we get anything done in this congress is lurching from one crisis to another. >> chris, it's good to you have on the show again. i want to mention he did some great reporting in the piece, you can check it out on the "national journal"'s web site. and coming up, the house's refusal to take up the sandy aid pack and. >> teachers and staffers from sandy hook elementary will get together for orientation wiat their new schools today. classes were made to look like

sandy hook. officials hope familiarity will help ease the kids as they go back for the first day after the shooting. classes start tomorrow. ltigrain! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios

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♪ oh what a relief it is! ♪ [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth and save $1 visit alka-seltzer on facebook. next hour the governor of pennsylvania is holding a news conference. he plans to sue the ncaa over the sanctions imposed again penn state university. you'll remember they were imposed after the jerry sandusky sex abuse case. >> people in colorado could ring in the new year at a new cannabis club, club 64, denver's first legal marijuana club is now open for business, although city attorneys are still checking on if this is technically legal because colorado legalized smoking pot at home, not in public. >> rhode island's legislature may take up same-sex marriage in

2013. just 11 out of 113 members of the state's general assembly are now republicans and leaders believe this new number could help them pass the legislation. >> in illinois the big issue on the table is pension reform. governor pat quinn called it the fiscal cliff for illinois. his office has released videos trying to drum up public support. he's helping a lame duck legislature will help him pass reform for university employees, judges and more. >> and if you read only one thing this morning, after traveling nearly a million miles as secretary of state, hillary clinton seemed almost super human. well, today my must read is from "the daily beast," tina brown, on why hillary's health scare gave so many people agina. it's up on our facebook page. can pluggable febreze make even this old container smell fresh?

describe the room. a big, open space. smells really fresh, man. oh! [ both laugh ] febreze? how about that? yeah. febreze anti-clogging technology keeps it smelling fresh. febreze. breathe happy. five days later, i had a massive heart attack. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. [ woman ] learn from my story. a major fiscal family feud has erupted in the republican party after a clear majority

voted against this fiscal cliff deal. the top two republicans, speaker john boehner and eric cantor were split. also notable, budget chairman paul ryan voted yes. the final gop count, 151 against the bill and 85 in favor. >> it was all about maintaining, if you will, the status quo of kick the can down the road. >> there's no spending cuts. we're adding $4 billion a day to the debt. the senate will fail miserably in cutting spending. >> much better to make this deal now and move on to those other fights at the appropriate time, which is, by the way, just around the corner. >> some conservative pundits have been blasting republicans and newt gingrich tweeted "the gop has been engauged ged in a two-month dance of defeat and surrender.

>> good morning, happy new year. >> good morning. >> happy new year. >> david, do you agree with your former boss? did republicans surrender? >> no, they were just faced with a very difficult choice. obviously in terms of the tax cuts, that's something that if republicans wanted to see go forward, we've been talking about that for years, it was originally a republican proposal but a lot of members were clearly disappointed. the president said during the campaign when he got to deficit reduction, that this initial package would have a significant amount of deficit reduction. it was in fact an increase. i think there a lot of republican members frustrated by that. having said that is correct all those members who are frustrated by that still thought getting those tax cuts pushed through and finalized was an important step but they just couldn't overcome the lack of deficit reduction in the bill. >> it isn't just newt gingrich who is furious. let me read you something from the conservative commentator eric eriksson. quote, the republican establishment in washington, d.c. should be burned to the

ground and salt spread on their remains. steve, is he an outlier there enough republicans in the house to believe that, too, in a way that to work with the democrats on this was a mistake and that that could maybe work to the democrats' advantage going forward? >> i think the republicans have a big problem here. barack obama and the democrats fought the election on this issue and they won and then they did what they said they were going to do and they did it in a unified, coherent way, where they all delivered the same message. >> but you know what their argument is. their argument is the american people may have wanted tax toes go up on the rich but they also wanted spending cuts and that's what they didn't get. >> we're going to have another fight in a couple months. the democrats are unified -- the problem for the republicans is the democrats are unified and the republicans, all over the map. if you spent the last two weeks watching your show and every other show on cable tv, the republicans are everywhere. they don't have a consistent, coherent spokesperson delivering

a consistent, coherent message and that's a problem for them. >> let's see if they're consistent tomorrow because the vote for house speak ser is up when the new congress convenes. take a listen. >> republicans weren't with him butt house was. 151 of us voted no. just like t.a.r.p., the vast majority of people disapproved of something that became law. speaker boehner allowed the regular process to occur and gave us the opportunities. >> boehner was marginalized in this agreement and had serious problems himself. what does he do to become relevant or can he given the internal disagreements in the party going forward? >> i'd have to challenge the premise directly. he was quite relevant in this. his plan b got over 90% of the republican conference. >> in the end they had to bring in the number two at the white

house, the vice president, and the number two in the -- >> hey, i'm not disagreeing with you that this is a particularly difficult fight, but ultimately the speaker ended up, you know, leading the way in terms of trying to go to some other alternative, again, plan b being that particular route. again, this was a policy dynamic. it was not a leadership issue. as congressman isa laid out, this is not a situation where people have less confidence. if anything, this is a conference solidly behind the speaker. having said that, this is a policy dynamic where you had the tax cuts which republicans clearly wanted but there wasn't the deficit reduction they clearly wanted and there was a disagreement on this specific bill. wait till the debt ceiling debate. that is going to be a very difficult debate when we get to it. >> we're out of time, steve. on a scale of one to ten with ten being nuclear, how bad is the debt ceiling debate going snob. >> i'd say it's going to be about an eight.

hopefully the republicans will listen to what obama said last night and not play politics with something that's very important for our economy. >> gentlemen, good to see you. >> day four in the hospital for hillary clinton after doctors found a blood clot in her brain. this is an uncommon complication from a concussion but doctors say she is doing well. >> our chief health correspondent is with me. bob, robert, how's she doing? what's going on? >> we have no word, other than what they're saying she's good. it wouldn't be unusual for someone to be in the hospital this long because adjusting the blood thin ser a difficult and common task. >> so people shouldn't read too much into it that she's been in the snopt. >> not at all. it takes a while to get the dose right. >> when they hear a blood clot near the brain, that sounds super serious. >> it was serious. it is serious. she had a very serious problem,

which had the potential if the blood clot got larger -- we have an illustration of it -- and that vein drains blood from the brain to the rest of the body and if you see the clot grow here in secretary of defense, if it were to continue to grow, it could block that vein and that would lead to stroke-like symptoms. and what they do is they devolve th -- dissolve this with blood thinners and it becomes less of a threat. >> and they can monitor that? >> what they do is monitor her. they said in the statement her neurological symptoms are no normal. >> no stroke? >> no stroke or signs of stroke. the length of time does not indicate anything. it could be more dangerous than we know, but we don't know anything because we're limited. there are very few statements

that we get from her office. but so far right now it adds up to the fact that she should be on progress to a normal recovery. >> bob, thank you so much. funerals are under way for some of the teachers and aid workers killed in pakistan yesterday. five were killed when their van came under attack. they were on their way home from a community center. there has been a militant can campaign of violence against aid workers and these work verse been vaccinating pakistani children against polio. >> no charges are to be filed against a celebrity photographer who hit and killed a photographer taking pictures of justin bieber's car. bieber wasn't even in the car at the time. a friend was driving. >> and here's something that might make you feel better if you've already broken your new year's resolution to lose weight. a government analysis shows people who are overweight by 30

pounds or less have a significant live lower risk of early death than those at a normal weight. the lead researcher says they're not sure why but it's been suggested overweight people see a doctor more often and doctors may pay more attention to their overweight patients. >> stocks are soaring on this first day of the new year. court any reagan is here with what's moving your money. this fiscal cliff deal is giving investors something to cheer about? >> that's exactly it. looks like the dow is up about 250 points right now. stocks, which are risk-related asset classes, along with commodities are moving higher on this fiscal cliff deal. it's the uncertainty that has dissipated that's helping lift stocks almost across the board. the text-handy nasdaq is leading gains with the best intra day gain, we're talking about percentage, in six months. the first trading day of the year actually seems to be kind of a charm for the bulls on wall street because the dow has not fall i don't know on the year's first trading day since 2005.

so we've got some interesting movements here. but some traders are warning that this rally could be a bit short lived because i know you were discussing it earlier. we still have to talk about the nation's borrowing in just a couple weeks and wall street knows that. we're paying attention to that. >> we saw what happened last time and it wasn't good. >> the good news is we also averted the dairy cliff, we won't be paying $8 for a gallon of milk but i heard orange juice prices are way up. what's going on there? >> experts say that more than half of the state's orange and grapefruit crop are infected with citrus greening, a bacterial disease that eventually kills the trees. the fruit that false off the trees is still edible. however, as that continues and the trees die off, we could have a problem here. the fda forecasts serious implications for florida's $9 billion citrus industry, that means lost revenue, potential job-related losses for those

that work in the industry and then we'll see higher price tess grocery stores. futures have increased. right now fairly steady. you never know. it's all going to depend on the weather and this bacterial infection. >> courtney reagan, thank you so much. >> there are some things that will be cleaner in the new year. movie streaming prices should go down. e books announced discounts, smartphones are getting cleaner, so are hdtvs, especially some of the really big ones and gas prices. oil analysts think oil could drop by $30 a barrel and that would mean lower prices at the pump. can curlers! tomato basil, potato with bacon... we've got a lot of empty cans. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup.

i'm here to unleash my inner cowboy... instead i got heartburn. [ horse neighs ] hold up partner. prilosec isn't for fast relief. try alka-seltzer. kills heartburn fast. yeehaw! 98% of americans may have been spared an income tax hike in this new fiscal cliff deal but that doesn't mean you won't be paying more to uncle sam.

good to see you and happy new year. >> happy new year. >> lawmakers and president obama allowed the payroll tax cut to expire. that's something that hits 160 million americans. what kind of money are we talking about? >> we're talking about a thousand dollars for an average family who makes about $50,000 a year. it's something that will come out of their pocketbook steadily through the course of the year. remember, this is something that has really not been stressed during the course of this fiscal cliff debate because this pay row tax break has become increasingly unpopular in congress because when it continues to go in effect, it takes money away from the social security trust fund and a lot of members of congress are worried about the impacts on social security in the long term. so they ended up increasing that tax rate from 4.2% to 6.2% and that's going to start to take effect in the new year. >> let's talk about the better news for most americans and that's the income tax decision. the bush tax cuts will be made

permanent for most americans, individuals making more than $400,000 and couples making more than $450,000. what's the impact on the economy? >> i think the certainty will be very important. there's going to be -- there's not going to be a concern among businesses about these tax rates expiring. so businesses and a lot of politicians were looking for more certainty in the economy. of course you're hearing some concerns from republicans who voiced this yesterday and who nearly scuttled the senate deal of the impact this may have on business owners, folks who do earn more than $450,000 a year. this is a concern that it could have an impact on the economy, have an impact on job growth. the white house doesn't see it that way. neither do democrats and a lot of republicans here who supported it. you know, i think the idea of having this tax rates made permanent will take away the

fear among a lot of businesses that these can expire and that tax rates will dramatically increase with no deal in congress. >> something else that we didn't hear a lot about is the alternative minimum tax, but this deal actually permanently fixes that. why is that important? >> every single year, congress punts on the so-called amt. this is a tax system that was created in a way that was not supposed to hit the middle class but over the years the way it's happened is eventually it's threatened to hit the middle class every single year so every single year congress decides to punt on this issue and never decides to fix it permanently. it issue on the budget deficit and an ability to project how much the deficit will grow on an annual basis. this deal is getting rid of this problem entirely. you're seeing now congress won't have to deal with it in the

future. it will have an impact on how much budget deficits grow in the future and, as you saw, the price tag of this deal could potentially be in the $4 trillion range, largely because of this permanent amt repeal. >> there's one more piece of this that we talked about going into the negotiations for this over the weekend and that's what it would mean for the unemployeds long-term benefits. they will be extended now for about 2.1 million americans but just for a year, right? >> that's right. this will be a fight that will come up again, no doubt about it. but this was a big priority for the white house and for senate democrats. they're pushing hard to get this included in the package. and they did. but we'll see this again when they do come time to expire, there's concern about how much -- that will also add to the deficit. this will certainly replay itself. >> thank you so much for coming on the program. >> thanks for having me. >> today's tweet of the day

comes from andy borowitz. praising congress for the fiscal cliff dean is like giving an award for an arsonist putting out his own fire. hello? hello?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello? ally bank. your money needs an ally.

zbrrchltss ink . the incoming 113th congress will be sworn in tomorrow. they will likely tackle taxes, gun role. but there are other issues that may be on the agenda. we have the sleeper issues for congress. let's dive right in. you say at the top of your list fossil fuel exports. why do you think this might become a big issue? >> i think fossil fuel exports has been a huge issue in the energy world for the last couple of years and finally it's rising to the level of where it's going to gain the attention of congress. the energy department released a study last month giving an implicit nod to natural gas exports. i think that could compel

congress to really look at this issue. this law governing natural gas exports hasn't been updated since 1938. whether or not congress has the political will to change it remains to be seen but it's certainly going to be part of the conversation. >> you also write about the european financial crisis. i would think it's fair to say 2012 was a horrible, terrible, very bad year for the european economy. but what could that mean to us here? >> right. i think the fiscal cliff of the past month has really allowed a lot of people and especially those in congress to forget that there's a big world out there where economies are not doing so well either. there's been a couple of economists, some of the big economic firms like deutsche bank and others who say, quote, we don't want to have a false sense of security about how europe is doing. i think as we have to somewhat of a degree put off the fiscal cliff, i think europe's woes are going to back to the forefront of congress. that could impact the u.s.

economy and gas prices. i think how europe does is going to affect a lot of what happens in the u.s. economy and congress. >> there's also an ongoing school issue that will affect the nation's public school systems. tell bus that. >> it's a sombering reality when we talk about k through 12, we've been thinking only about gun violence in the wake of the newtown shooting. but congress could revisit the no child left behind act. the relationship between federal and state regulations is going to come to a head sooner rather than later and congress will have to be forced to have that discussion. >> you also see the dodd-frank too big to fail law as a hot button issue. why? >> right. although there hasn't been as much of an uproar to overhaul that law or overturn it, as compared to say the health care law, there's definitely a growing sense on both sides of the aisle and interestingly

enough to reexamine these too big to fail, the mega institutions, which are governing our markets. and i think you see people on both sides of the aisle, senator sharon brown, a democrat of ohio and senator witter of louisiana coming together and they're on opposite sides of the political spectrum, coming together to put pressure on congress to see if these banks are too big and see if five, ten -- five years down the road are we going to be in the same economic issue as in 2008. >> the epa's climate change rules for existing polluters. >> global warming and climate change has gotten a lot of attention in light of hurricane sandy and some scientists saying sandy was exacerbated and caused by global warming. and president obama mentioned that in his first press conference after the election. but what he did not mention is his environmental protection agency is rolling out regulations controlling greenhouse gas emissions from

the biggest power plants and industrial plants here in the country. he talks about those similar rules confronting cars but not those for power plants yet those are going forward one way or the other. i think congress will be debating that over the next couple of years as to how to change or stop or override it with some other big climate change law that congress might consider in the years ahead. >> it will be fascinating to see what actually does rise to the top. amy, thank you. >> thank you. >> that wraps up this hour of "jansing and company." hey there, luke. >> hey. we had a late one yesterday. >> hard to know what day or time it is. >> topping our agenda next hour live from washington, the fiscal cliff has been averted but for now what did we see over the last few days may be nothing compared to the fiscal fights

ahead. i'll talk with tom cole and congress pulls the plug on relief for the hurricane sandy victims, pitting republicans against republicans in the house. >> i don't enjoy saying this. i consider myself a personal friend of john boehner and john boehner personally has been very helpful to me over the years. it pains me to say the fact is the dismissive attitude that was shown last night toward new york, new jersey and connecticut typifies i believe a strain in the republican party pip kn. i know this is not the place to discuss politics but that politics seeps over to a governmental decision that was made. >> peter king is angry at his own party over their lack of funding of sandy relief. and congressman barney frank joins me live on his last day on the job. what does he think about leaving behind perhaps the least productive congress ever? you don't want to miss all of that. for the first week... i'm like...yeah, ok...

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